


Please. Help me forget.

by Turnandfacethepaige



Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, Pining, if you're hoping for obvious stordo i'm really sorry, this was for the Doctor Strange kinkmeme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 16:03:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9910415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turnandfacethepaige/pseuds/Turnandfacethepaige
Summary: Based on the prompt: Stordo dialogue prompt - 'Please. Help me forget.'Set after leaving Stephen and Kamar-Taj and all it stands for, Mordo begins to realise that he desire to become stronger is being held back by something he's too scared to admit to.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BotanyCameos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BotanyCameos/gifts).



Maybe it had been too much for him.

That’s what he had told himself as he had limped the entire way to the castle, shoulder jarring in pain, feet squelching with every step from a disgusting mixture of mud and water and muck that had squeezed in between his toes as he had crawled up from the river he had crashed into. That it was all too much to think about. It was probably why he hadn’t attempted to solve anything about it, or even try to get anything done. 

Maybe it was too much for him to get over.

Hong Kong echoed eerily in his mind, fire and smoke interweaving with Kaecilius and Dormammu wandering in whenever he lost track of the next explosion, and with it came HIM  

Stephen Strange. Floating away into the sky to form a deal with the demon come to wreak havoc. Of time repeated again and again, of the blood that had dribbled from his nose where he had been thrown to the floor and had forced himself to stand up again, and of Stephen Strange. With his cape that had curled and fluttered around him as he had come back down to them, almost god-like, eyes weary but a light deep within them as he realised he had saved them, had saved the world. Has saved them all.

How quickly that light had faded when Mordo had stepped away from him. 

At least, that’s what Mordo wanted to think. It would have been nice to think Stephen felt some sort of sadness to see Mordo walk away from what he had built for himself for the past ten years. It would have been nice to think he cared. It would have meant somebody did.

Mordo had had enough. Of chanting spells and casting circles and sling-rings in the mountains of Tibet only to find it all a lie, that the one who he had believed to be strong enough and good enough to lead him and his fellow sorcerers had been working with the demon who had prowled and snarled the galaxies that had been unlucky to come before the earth. Of the empty sockets that had once contained Kaecilius’ eyes and the butchered mosaic that had peeled itself into the skin below them. Kaecilius had become as inhumane as Dormammu because, once upon a time, he had seen the flaws within the Ancient One. 

Would he become like Kaecilius? Would he ever stoop that low?

Maybe. Who knew? Who cared?

Mordo thought, as he began to spot the familiar outline of the castle where he had been lurking for the past few months, that having a bit of power on your side didn’t seem to be that bad. After all, Kaecilius had been doing pretty well before he had gone full-on psychopath mode and got rid of the head in head librarian. And the Ancient One had been plenty strong thanks to the dark dimensions.

Dabbling in some of it didn’t seem like a bad thing. The only problem was allowing it in. He had already taken the power from Pangborn (it still rattled around inside him, heating his bones and muscles in a soothing lull, something Mordo hadn’t anticipated at all) and that hadn’t proved too difficult. If anything it had been easy to take. Mordo hadn’t realised his problem until it was too late. 

His love for Stephen was slowing him down, making him stupid and careless and if he didn’t do something about it, it was going to rob him of what he was so desperately seeking. It was love, that he had realised, and it was destroying him. He had grown stronger since he had abandoned Kamar-Taj and its teachings, had stolen magic and had plotted and seethed and waited in the darkness of dimly lit alleyways for stolen chances and meetings with beings beyond human comprehension. He was nothing like the foolishly weak teacher he had once been. That had been proved the week before when he had slit the throat of a lesser sorcerer in the back rooms of a dim, dank house in New York.

But he had almost killed himself when he saw a slip of scarlet, a flash of blue and salt-and-pepper hair rounding a corner and dashed across the road to seek its source, sprinting when a bus shot round after him and nearly crushed him beneath its wheels.

As he had hounded down the road, a stitch burning up in his side, he had denied it. Of course he had denied it. He was Karl Amadeus Mordo, a baron born and bred, a magician of the highest order, trained under the Sorcerer Supreme, and had more power, more grace and more strength in one finger than any other person could have had in their entire body. He was not running for a certain Stephen Strange. He was most certainly not running after something that had electrified him deep within the Tibetan mountains, and he most certainly was not bursting with desperation to see that face once again.

He was not running for anything anymore.

Of course it hadn’t been him. He had gripped the man by the shoulder and spun him around and the face had been a combination of soft cheeks, freckle spattered nose and cheek bones, and liquid brown eyes that peered into him with confusion and slight worry.

Mordo had hastily apologised and hurried away as quickly as he could get himself away, his mind hissing with images of Stephen smiling, laughing in exhaustion through training at Kamar-Taj, eyes wide and amazed as the Ancient One opened his mind and his eyes, eyes sharp as they darted in the streets of New York, his face open and shocked as Mordo began to walk away from him in Hong Kong. Stephen smiling at him. Stephen staring at him, frowning. Stephen. Stephen.

He shook his head and carried on making his way to the front door of the castle. His limbs were sore and ached with every step he took, the cold freezing him to the bone. But it was the thought of what he had in the basement that kept him going, the grim determination and almost weary sadness of what he had to carry out that managed to push him on. He had wanted to cling on to this romance, this dream as long as he possibly could, relish in what could have been and Stephen. But unrequited love is a factor that does not help in gaining unlimited power, as Mordo was beginning to understand. 

He didn’t want to let go of Stephen. Plain and simple. But if he were to ever succeed he had to.

His choice was eerily stark as it lay bare before him. He knew what he had to do.

The castle was cold, the air musty and icy as he stepped through the main door, silence broken only by the closing of the door and the winds that whistled and howled round the cracks in the castle walls, mouse droppings and cobwebs the only decorations that had come free with it. He began to trudge his way to the stairway that led to the basement, head bowed and breathing wheezy, the package pressed to his chest,  feet leaving a soaking trail behind him on his way down into the dark.

He had found the book after two weeks of skulking in dusty, forgotten libraries,  meeting old witches and even older demons, and it hadn’t taken him long to sneak into the library and steal the book out of it. It was wrinkled brown leather, and slightly warm from his body heat, wrapped tightly in a red cloth bag that had been charmed to ensure nothing could pass through it. 

If summoned correctly, if provided with a big enough prize, one could summon things from one dimension unto another and ask them to carry out their bidding. Some were stronger than others. Some were more greedy than others. Mordo needed one that could allow him to be freed of the burden he had gained, and the one that this book held the key to was exactly what he was looking for.

Mephisto. 

The demon was older than anything that Mordo had met, and was far stronger than the Ancient One had even dared to be. Knights of Hell cowered before his gaze, hellhounds whimpered with one glimpse of his shadows, and demons sprinted to hide if they so much as heard that he had returned to the Earth. He was exactly what Mordo needed for his little problem. All that was required of summoning a demon to do your bidding was to do it correctly, and to pay him back. Demons were pretty strict about the whole paying them back thing. You had to be prepared to part with something big to pay off a demon. He was lucky, Mordo thought in a mixture of grim satisfaction and horrified misery as he went deeper into the castle’s depths, the silence that was beginning to permeate from the bottom of the staircase ringing in his ears, that he had something big enough to pay away his debts. 

Memories were always expensive to keep.

He had reached the bottom. A door of heavy oak was waiting for him from across a narrow corridor. It was opened and the contents of it awaited him; a small, dark cushion that lay in the centre of a white salted pentagram, a few candles scattered around the place, that he had lit with a single flick of his hands, even a muddied old cattle skull he had dug out of a field and put here for this purpose, and the raised stand that kept the few books he had, the scraps of paper ripped from others he had not managed to take. Settling down on the cushion, Mordo winced as he finally relaxed his shoulder and removed the book to rest it against the stand and began to read.

It was easy. Focus on the doorway to the world where Mephisto lurked and open it. Similar to the way he had done so before all this. The book had even provided a handy little picture to help the summoner. It was a lot less bloody than Mordo expected Hell to be, but that was beside the point, and he should be grateful there was even a picture in the first place. He straightened himself and took in a breath, ignoring the sick lurch in his stomach, and began to focus.

His hands reached out and began to draw the circle, focusing on the gateway, of it’s twisted metal, the glitter and boil of hellish fires and the writhing pain of the souls that burnt inside them. A strange, hollow feeling began to wash inside him as he felt the circle get bigger, an echoing despair for what he was about to do. Strands of a cold wind brushed his face, cold as ice, and the feeling of something humanoid and physical beginning to emerge and step forward manifested around him.

There was a small hush of wind, a gasp as this universe stretched and bent to accommodate the being that was forcing its way through, a snap of skin forming into skin, and then a still, peaceful calm. No wind. No sounds. Nothing. 

Mordo opened his eyes and saw him.

Mephisto stood before him, clothed in the fleshly robes of Stephen Strange.

He was beautiful, a rebirthed Adonis come to him, his skin milky as the moon and smooth as marble, looked almost as though it was made of the stuff, curved and smoothed and so, so like Stephen it nearly took his breath away. He stood before him, naked except for a small wrap of fabric that rested against his hips, the sharp just of his hipbones cradling his stomach. And his eyes - dear god his eyes - his eyes burnt and whorled in his face, the colour of Chaos when it echoed throughout the universes, of raw magic at its best and brightest, focused on the prey that kneeled before him.

He opened his mouth and Mordo’s stomach lurched, ached to hear the voice he longed  for so desperately.

You have called me.

It was him, it was him, him, him, with only an echo of magic trailing behind it. But it was still him, still the voice that had croaked and pleaded with him outside Kamar-Taj’s front door. 

Mordo opened his mouth, and the sentence he had readied at his lips cracked and vanished, as he gasped in uselessly as he felt as though a foot had kicked him straight in his gut.

A smile spread on Stephen’s face, but it was Mephisto's eyes that stared at him, that never left him, wide and unblinking and inhumane. 

You want a deal, am I correct?

It wasn’t a question. Mordo swallowed and spoke.

‘I want you to help me.'

Mephisto smirked, And what would that involve?

He had moved closer. Mordo could see the way the dim candlelight curled around him, burnt orange against his marble skin. He licked his lips and tried to speak again.

‘Please,’ he whispered, ‘Please help me.’

Mephitis took another step until he was standing right in front of him, gaze boring into him, hands hanging loosely but calmly at his side. He tilted his head, and raised an eyebrow.

How? he murmured, his voice a rumble, a curl of a predator’s claws and Mordo couldn’t breathe, wanted to push him away and forget about this stupid idea, forget about Mephisto and think only on the future and on the man who had stood before him, red cloak billowing in the smoky wind. 

But he didn’t. Mordo raised his face, so that his eyes connected with his and he spoke, with a clear and eerie calm that would have surprised him if he hadn’t been suppressing the urge to weep.

‘Please,’ he breathed, ‘Please. Help me forget.’

Eyes like Chaos blinked and burned and a smile like a velvet hangnoose spread across his alabaster face. But he showed no other sign of emotion, no other sign of life. His hands, when they reached out and cupped his face and tilted it towards his, were cold and smooth, and smelt of the last gasps of air in dying galaxies.

Mordo looked up into the face of Stephen, of what could have been Stephen, of what could have been something for him and for his life and for so much more than what it had all turned out to be, and he realised that this was the most he would ever get from him, the most he would ever receive from this secret he had locked away and tried to forget, that he would never be held like this by anyone ever again. Not now. Not ever.

Mephisto leaned forward, and Mordo closed his eyes, the last image of Stephen Strange echoing in his brain, imprinting on the backs of his eyes.

When the lips touched his, he knew there would be nothing else to remember him by.

**Author's Note:**

> That was my first fic so I really hope you enjoyed it! Shout out to the wonderful BotanyCameos for helping me get into Stordo hell :D  
> I have a tumblr! check me out at @turn-and-face-the-paige


End file.
